SAUDI ARABIA. Saudi Arabia approved the National Transformation Plan (NTP) on Tuesday June 7, 2016, as part of Saudi Vision 2030 and goal to reduce reliance on oil. The NTP aims to boost non-oil revenue to 530 billion riyals (US$141 billion) by 2020 through more than 500 initiatives including the implementation of new taxes and increasing government fees and taxes on “harmful products”. Minister of State Mr. […]
FUJAIRAH-sharjah // Parents are concerned about the lack of summer camps and sports activities for children in Fujairah over the school holidays. With few centres offering indoor activities such as swimming, football and basketball, residents are at a loss over what to do with their children for the two months. Finding an affordable camp is also a problem. Jordanian mother Seham Al Shoulh, has been looking for […]
The decision of British voters in last Thursday’s referendum to leave the European Union will have vast consequences for Britain, for Europe and for the world. For a day, the British people were the government, and by 52 per cent to 48 per cent, they took the decision to go. I was a British prime minister who believed completely that Britain’s future lay in Europe. I was […]
UAE. A new generation of young, highly motivated and mostly well-educated men and women is ready to take over leadership of their family businesses, according to Deloitte’s latest report conducted across the Europe, Middle East and Africa region entitled “Next-generation family businesses Evolution, keeping family values alive.” They are resolute and ready to face the challenges ahead in order to maintain the family character of the business […]
UAE. Boardrooms’ awareness of cyber risks has been recently growing in Europe, Middle East and Africa, with cyber security ranking far up on the agendas of non-executive directors in the region, according to Deloitte’s recent report entitled “EMEA 360 Boardroom Survey: Agenda priorities across the region.” The report reveals that innovation is also gaining ground with 60% of respondents ranking it as a very important issue. These […]
A BGSU photochemical sciences research team has shown that a new and unusual reaction path in chemistry occurs not only in the gas phase, but also in solution. According to Dr. Alexander N. Tarnovsky, the finding, which is important to atmospheric photochemistry, also establishes the direct link between chemical reactivity in the gas phase and in solution. Tarnovsky and doctoral graduate assistants Andrey Mereschenko, Evgeniia V. Butaeva, […]
Government has been informed and security of the strategically important facility beefed up, committee says Jammu: Terrorists are hiding in villages close to the “vulnerable” Pathankot airbase, which can come under fresh attack from them, the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Home Affairs said on Tuesday. It said the government has been informed about it and security of the strategically important facility beefed up. The committee was […]
During its annual SugarCon conference last week, customer relationship management (CRM) firm SugarCRM unveiled a new machine learning-based offering that’s currently in development: Sugar Intelligence Service. The service, which will be delivered through a Siri- or Cortana-like artificial intelligence (AI) agent called “Candace,” will combine companies’ in-house data with other outside sources to provide predictive analytics and a more 360-degree view of customers. No release date or […]
|By Matein Khalid| Sterling sell off in the world currency markets and the sheer populist appeal of Boris Johnson suggests the world should not rule out a geopolitical shock that will unnerve financial markets and lead to the mother of all rate cuts at the Bank of England. If Britain votes to leave the EU, the only currency I want to own is the Swiss franc and gold, […]
AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan’s national census takers made something of a stark discovery earlier this year when they found that nearly a third of the country’s 9.5 million residents are not, technically speaking, Jordanians. For decades, the country has absorbed successive waves of people fleeing war and chaos. Lately it has been the Syrians, but before them came Iraqis, Sudanese and Palestinians, not to mention those from […]
Light and matter are typically viewed as distinct entities that follow their own, unique rules. Matter has mass and typically exhibits interactions with other matter, while light is massless and does not interact with itself. Yet, wave-particle duality tells us that matter and light both act sometimes like particles, and sometimes like waves. Harnessing the shared wave nature of light and matter, researchers at the University of […]
LONDON — After years of international isolation under the rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya sought to emulate its Middle Eastern neighbors by creating a sovereign wealth fund in 2006 to invest the proceeds from its sale of oil. The North African nation soon turned to Goldman Sachs to help it invest some of the more than $35 billion in funds it had available in late 2007. […]
FILE PHOTO — A woman looks at her phone as she passes by a Lending Club banner on the facade of the the New York Stock Exchange December 11, 2014. Reuters/Brendan McDermid/File Photo SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters/IFR) – Many online lenders have failed to detect the “stacking” of multiple loans by borrowers who slip through their automated underwriting systems, lending company executives and investors told Reuters. […]
AMIRIYAT FALLUJA, Iraq — One of the Iraqi civilians who risked an escape from the sprawling battle for Falluja made it as far as the Euphrates River. He was there for all to see on Sunday morning: His body, tied to the side of a boat, bobbed in the muddy waters next to a rickety bridge that separates Baghdad from the violence of Anbar Province. “Sheikh, sheikh, […]
WASHINGTON — An exhausted and ill-equipped Iraqi Army faces daunting obstacles on the battlefield that will most likely delay for months a long-planned major offensive on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, American and allied officials say. The delay is expected despite American efforts to keep Iraq’s creaky war machine on track. Although President Obama vowed to end the United States’ role in the war in Iraq, […]
Fish that are bred to be bolder or more shy show corresponding changes to their body shape and locomotion, suggesting that personality changes affect other seemingly unrelated traits. The findings could be useful in animal breeding, pest management and studies of complex human behaviors. In a study performed by North Carolina State University researchers, zebrafish that were bred to be more bold — quantified by the shorter […]
Living cells are capable of performing complex computations on the environmental signals they encounter. These computations can be continuous, or analogue, in nature — the way eyes adjust to gradual changes in the light levels. They can also be digital, involving simple on or off processes, such as a cell’s initiation of its own death. Synthetic biological systems, in contrast, have tended to focus on either analogue […]
UAE. According to a new report, PwC Middle East’s ‘Care Anywhere: Moving health and wellness out of the hospital into the hands of the consumer’, technology is providing the opportunity for new ways of accessing and delivering healthcare. In a society that is living longer, with Governments facing the growing burden of long-term chronic disease and increasing costs of treatment, innovation and technology could be the catalyst […]
Mobile subscribers will be less susceptible to exorbitant bills thanks to a directive by the telecoms regulator asking companies to put hard caps on mobile data usage. This week, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) issued a directive ordering Etisalat and du, the country’s sole providers of mobile services, “to put a ceiling, or hard cap, on their respective mobile data bundles in a bid to protect consumers […]
More than 18 months after Apple Pay took the United States by storm, the smartphone giant has made only a small dent in the global payments market, snagged by technical challenges, low consumer take-up and resistance from banks. The service is available in six countries and among a limited range of banks, though in recent weeks Apple has added four banks to its sole Singapore partner American Express; […]
The Chevrolet Spark is designed for city dwellers who are looking for a small car that packs all the connectivity features of the big cars, but don’t require the horsepower or the proportions of a bigger vehicle. For 2016, the all-new Spark packs 17% more power than the first-generation model, so the power output increases from a measly 84 horsepower to a more acceptable 98 horsepower. What’s […]
Online abuse, harassment and trolling have proven to be stubborn problems for many social networking sites, but Periscope believes users might find help through a jury of their peers. The Twitter-owned video-streaming app announced yesterday that it was introducing a new and “community-led” tool to let users report comments they find spammy or abusive. Following such reports, a random group of viewers will be asked to vote […]
A lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in California has alleged that Apple, Broadcom and Avago Technologies, a Broadcom subsidiary, have infringed on several Wi-Fi-related patents held by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Filed Thursday in the Central District of California, the complaint claimed that the companies are wrongfully using intellectual property protected by four U.S. patents awarded to Caltech between 2006 and 2012. […]
A new line of chips from Qualcomm aim to be the go-to hardware to power the growing wearables market. Over the weekend, the chipmaker announced a new line of processors called the Snapdragon Wear 1100, containing numerous functions and complex usage capabilities. The new chipsets will be integrated into smart watches, smart headsets and various accessories. The new chips, which are meant to complement Qualcomm’s recently introduced […]
